CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

When I got home, I found my father in the kitchen, having takeout sushi on the island countertop. For a second, I considered letting all my rage out and telling him he’d used me. But when he lifted his head, I could tell how this was going to go. He was going to pretend nothing was wrong, expect me to do the same, and leave me with a pat on the head for my troubles.

I pulled off my heels and dropped my purse, stomping in to grab a cup of water. He frowned, sending me a confused glance.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating.”

His phone buzzed, and he glanced down. Then, quick as a flash, he flipped it over to conceal the screen. I stared, dumbfounded.

“What? Someone send you a nude?” I snapped before I could bite it back.

“Excuse me?” he said, brows rising to his hairline.

“Sorry, I just…got up on the wrong side of the bed,” I said, backpedaling hard.

His shocked expression melted, revealing a flicker of something else in his eyes. I leaned in, studying his face, and immediately felt awful. He was tired, his eyes red like he’d been up all night.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Going through some personal bumps. But it’s fine.”

Suddenly, I was a little girl, and it was just me and my father against the world. Guiltily, I took a beat to wrestle with my roiling emotions. We might be butting heads in business, but outside that, I still loved him unconditionally.

I chewed my lip. “Sorry, work has been stressing me out. Maybe we should take some time to talk. I definitely could use that…I’m a little hurt after—”

“No, you have a life,” he interrupted. “Maybe we were too dependent on each other anyway.”

I reeled back. “What?”

He sighed, crossing his arms. “Maybe we should talk about you getting a house. Or an apartment.”

My poor, broken heart ached. “You want me to move out?”

“Circe, you’re twenty-five,” he said reasonably. “This isn’t an unreasonable conversation to have at this point.”

“Dad,” I said, horrified. “You’re dating someone seriously, aren’t you? Am I making you uncomfortable being here?”

He lifted his hand. “No, it’s just…well, maybe I am seeing someone. But I’m not ready for introductions.”

“Why?” I was having a hard time keeping the pain out of my voice.

His eyes narrowed. “Are you ready to introduce me to the man you’re seeing?”

My heart stopped. Had he seen Caden and I together?

“What?” I squeaked.

His lips thinned. “Honey, you’re clearly seeing someone.”

“We’re just f—casual,” I blurted out.

He gave a heavy sigh. “Let’s talk about this like adults. It would be nice if I had a house where I could bring my dates home without making you feel awkward. I’m sure you would like to bring your dates home as well.”

Did he want privacy…or did he just want me gone?

“Dad, I don’t want to talk about that part of my life.”

He sighed. “Alright, I’m heading out to sleep in a hotel in the city because you won’t talk to me like an adult.”

My stomach twisted. It was better he thought that was the truth, even though it wasn’t. In reality, I was terrified that if I talked to him, I’d accidentally out the person I was sleeping with as Caden. It was better he thought I was just being immature, not sleeping with the man he’d ordered me to betray.

“Okay, that’s fine,” I said, throwing up my hands.

“Tell your boy toy I said hello,” he called as I padded down the hall and up the stairs.

I slammed my door, heart pounding. I had to be more careful, or he was going to start putting pressure on me to meet Caden. And that couldn’t happen. I’d gotten giddy and careless, intoxicated by all his tattoos and beautiful eyes and magic tongue.

I’d gotten sloppy.

Maybe deep down, that was what Caden wanted. He was, after all, on the opposing team.

I took a long bath with lavender salts to calm down and soothe my bruised feelings. I was chin deep in soapy water, my damp hair piled on my head, when my phone buzzed, revealing Caden’s name. I scowled. No, he was not going to sweet talk me into his bed again tonight.

I hit the speaker button and set it on the edge of the tub.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He laughed softly. “You changed your tune since this morning.”

“Kind of had a fight with my dad,” I grumbled.

From outside, I heard my father’s car door slam. Wheels rolled down the drive, and the gate screeched open and shut. I let out a small sigh.

“He just left,” I whispered.

“Okay,” he said, his voice low. “I’ll come to you, butterfly.”

“No, no, don’t do that. We have security cameras.”

“So shut them off. See you in ten.” The phone clicked, and he was gone.

I gritted my teeth. All around me was a world I”d made for myself of pink and gauze. I’d erected barricades of the things that had kept me safe through my girlhood.

Silk, ribbons, fairy lights, fluttering curtains. All in the same shade of mauve, carefully color matched from my mother’s wind chime.

Caden didn’t fit into this world.

He’d probably think it was silly that I still had a canopy bed with gauze curtains and roses on the headboard. He was a fighter—and not the kind I knew how to deal with, the ones who fought through lawyers in crisp suits—he had blood on his hands and scars hidden beneath the ink on his skin. He was used to living a utilitarian existence.

There was no world where we melded together into one.

Wrathfully, I got out of the tub. For a moment, I considered putting on a sweatsuit to cover every inch of my body, but then I pulled on a silk slip instead. He’d already seen all of me, what did it matter?

My hand shook—why was I shaking—as I brushed on some mascara and lipgloss. I debated putting my contact lenses in and decided against it. It was alright not to look perfect for him.

The glaze over me was cracking, but it still held firm.

I heard the whine of his Kawasaki before I saw it. On my bare feet, I pattered down to the side door, flipped the cameras off, and hit the button to lift the gate. He appeared around the corner, looking so good that all my thoughts of making him go home disappeared. My breathing calmed, my heart slowed. A little piece of me that had felt lopsided since I”d left him this morning clicked back into place.

He pulled around the side and parked against the wall. I waited at the kitchen door, watching him take his helmet off and hang it on the handlebars.

My stomach swooped.

He’d cut his hair.

It was short, almost a buzz cut. Heat roared through my veins, and my jaw dropped. He was gorgeous, like a marble bust, a Roman statue in a museum, but in full color. Black lashes as soft as a feather on his cheek, bright blue eyes just like his father’s glittering in the dark, unhindered by his hair.

I backed up, almost tripping on the kitchen stoop. He stepped inside, ducking so he wouldn’t hit his head on the frame. Our eyes locked.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“My dad’s gone,” I whispered.

His hand shot out, gripping me by the neck. For a second, all I saw was his wild, gleaming eyes before he pulled me against his body and his mouth came down on mine.

Kissing me like it was the last time we’d ever touch.

We were both panting when we broke apart. He brushed back a tangle of my damp hair and kissed the side of my neck in the same spot he always did. My bare toes curled on the cold floor.

“Why do you kiss me in the same place every time?” I gasped.

He nuzzled into the bend of my neck. “You have three little freckles there.”

Guilt swept through me like a flood and made my stomach churn. I pulled back, gasping.

He frowned. “What?”

I shook my head, wordless.

“Talk to me,” he ordered.

I couldn’t tell him tonight, but in the last few days, I’d done nothing but reconsider my promise to complete my father’s mission. When I’d agreed to it, I hadn’t known my father’s real plans.

I hadn’t known I would fall for the Brenin’s son.

I didn’t know what it was like to sleep in Caden’s arms, to feel his warm, lean body against mine. I didn’t yet know that he dreamed of me in Aphrodite’s temple in the cool of the morning, our bodies entwined on the stone ground, smelling of incense and sex.

My throat closed up. My eyes were sticky.

I wanted out.

That was the horrible truth of it. I wanted out, and there was no safety latch, no parachute to catch me if he let me fall when I finally told him the truth.

If I didn’t betray Caden, I would betray my father. I couldn’t have them both. I had to make a choice.

My father had made me responsible, but there was still a tiny fragment of me that longed for freedom, the kind Caden had spoken of that night at the koi pond, when he’d told me he dreamed of ancient worlds. When he’d explained the proper Welsh understanding of Hireath. At first, I’d dismissed it, but when I found the flaw in his story, it haunted me.

“No, a longing for what could have been. A place you’ll always want, but never get.”

There was no temple of Aphrodite at Ephesus; it was a temple to Artemis. I’d looked it up until my eyes went blurry from staring at my phone screen. I’d considered bringing this up to him, but I never had the courage to correct him on his mistake.

Now, I wondered if it was a mistake at all.

Maybe he dreamed of a place that had never been, that never would be, a pocket of space where we were together that was never meant to be real.

He dreamed of laying with me in a temple that had never existed.

Instead, we were heading into a very different story. I was going to be his real-life Brutus and bury my father’s knife so deeply in Caden’s back, there would be no bringing us back from the dead. That story would be real, visceral, and bloody.

Not beautiful like incense and stone.

I lifted my eyes. His beautiful face was half shrouded, half lit by the stove light. My heart ached. It didn’t matter if I told him right now that I felt something more for him. Or never. It wouldn’t change the outcome.

But I could give us just one more night in my bed.

My mouth shook as I forced it into a smile. “Take me upstairs.”

He didn’t have to be asked twice. He lifted me off my feet, one arm beneath my knees and the other securely around my back, like he was carrying me over the threshold on our wedding night.

“I’m assuming we head up the enormous marble staircase that way?” he said.

I nodded, slipping my arms around his neck. He carried me through the hall and up the curved staircase, hardly breaking a sweat. I watched the living room below fall away in a haze, wondering if this is what it felt like for people who had real feelings for each other. not rivals who had nothing but stolen nights and a tragic end.

“I’m at the end,” I whispered, laying my head on his shoulder.

He paused before my door, and I turned the knob, letting it swing open. His eyes skimmed over the plush carpet, the flowery wallpaper trim, the lace curtains, and the bed surrounded by a cloud of gauze. A soft floral scent puffed from the diffuser, and the nighttime breeze fluttered through the cracked windows.

“Exactly how I thought it would be,” he remarked.

Being in my room, my safest space, with him was chasing away the overwhelming guilt. I pulled my mind into the present.

We wouldn’t last forever, but we did have tonight, and I was going to make the most of it. Tomorrow could figure itself out. Tonight, there was nothing but us, no business, no mission. No knife resting in my hands, waiting to be plunged into his back.

Just us.

Involuntarily, I leaned in and kissed him. Softly, then with intensity.

He moaned, long and deep in his chest, like he was starving. We sank down, the soft silk of my comforter meeting my back. His lips parted, consuming mine as his arousal pushed hard into my lower stomach.

He tasted so good. My fingers slid up and dug into his short hair. Our mouths broke apart, and I gasped, my head spinning.

“I need you,” I whispered.

He shifted back onto his heels and reached to pull his shirt up, but I stopped him. He went still, watching as I climbed to crouch in front of him. His eyes were black in the dim light.

I’d never taken my time with his body like this. I slid my fingertips over the front of his pants where the hard ridge of his cock waited. It twitched, and warmth pulsed between my legs.

“Can I touch you?” I whispered. “However I like?”

His throat bobbed. “However you like, butterfly.”

I peeled his t-shirt up, revealing the hard V of his Adonis belt. There were sharp swirls of ink disappearing beneath his belt. My core tightened as my toes curled.

My lip was sore from being pinned between my teeth.

His fingers flexed, but he kept his hands back. “You can unzip me.”

I shook my head, pulling his shirt up over his head, revealing his lean muscles, scars, and dark, swirling ink. His chest heaved. I ran my fingers along the line in the center of his abs and traced the V until it disappeared.

“What was under this ink?” I whispered.

He cleared his throat. His lips parted.

“I got prison tattoos,” he said, his voice rasping. “For things I did…things I didn’t do. There were other shitty pieces I had done in garages, behind buildings. In other places.”

“What kind of places?”

I kissed his Adonis belt, and he inhaled sharply. His stomach tensed. Feeling bold, I flicked my tongue out and ran it up to his shallow navel.

His pupils blew. “Jesus—fuck,” he gritted.

I grazed him with my teeth. “You didn’t answer me.”

“I’ve been around,” he breathed. “I slept wherever there was a bed. Sometimes that was jail, sometimes a hostel or a garage, sometimes home. Unfortunately.”

I faltered, looking up at him, my mouth going still.

“I don’t want sympathy,” he said. “Don’t you stop.”

Obediently, I licked up past his naval. He tasted good—warm, firm, and clean…like Caden. He caught me by the back of the neck as I got higher and pulled me in to kiss my mouth, giving me a taste of his tongue before withdrawing.

“I need you,” he said.

“Not yet.”

He frowned, pushing me on my back. “Why?”

He looked so good, it made my chest hurt. He sank down on his hands and knees, crawling over me and pinning me to pillows. My thighs parted, and he slid between them, settling close enough that he could bend and kiss the freckles on the side of my neck.

My body tingled. My eyes locked on the ceiling, and it occurred to me this was the first time I’d laid in this bed with a man. My only sexual encounters before now had been at my ex’s house or in the back seat of his car.

I’d laid in this bed, staring up at my soft, mauve ceiling so many nights. This was my sanctuary, and it felt so right that he was in it.

His mouth left my neck and moved to my ear.

“I think I might need to come first,” he whispered.

“What?”

His mouth trailed to my temple. “If you want to be fucked tonight, I’m not going to last unless I come first.”

His hips rocked, and I felt how hard he was. I knew not being able to last was something people poked fun at, but it felt like the biggest compliment to me, especially coupled with the way he liked to talk while he was inside me.

Praising me, telling me how good I felt.

I shifted to face him, our mouths brushing. “Do you want me to go down on you?”

He groaned. “Pull that slip down and jerk me off until I come on your tits.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re filthy,” I whispered.

He started to say something, but then he bit it back. Still, I could tell what the first word was, and I had a pretty good idea of the next. Only…for you. That little slip up turned me on more than anything he’d ever said or done.

Only for me.

This gorgeous, lean body, his otherworldly mind that spun from dark to light faster than I could keep up, all his ink and scars. Those were all for me tonight.

To hell with what came tomorrow.

“Get up,” I breathed.

He got to his feet, and I dropped to my knees in front of him and pulled my slip down. My breasts fell free, hard and tingling. I heard the sharp intake of his breath overhead. My fingers trembled as I unfastened his belt and pulled his zipper down. His cock slipped free, hitting against his Adonis belt.

I wrapped my hand around the firm base and put the tip in my mouth, licking him to get him wet and feel him on my tongue. He jerked hard, and his hand slid over the back of my head, cradling me gently.

His heartbeat was in my hand, in my mouth.

“Fuck, butterfly,” he breathed. “I can’t wait.”

My free hand dug into his thigh. My other hand pulled him free and worked him hard. His stomach tensed, and his lids fell, drenched in lust, glittering in the dim light. His head fell to the side, his eyes closed.

His cock jerked, spilling out onto me, covering my chin and breasts in his cum without any shame.

He didn’t have to be ashamed.

He was beautiful.

His arousal was like a storm, shaking me to my core, sweeping through and leaving us both panting and drenched. Gently, he pried my hand off his dick and tucked it in his pants, crouching down before me.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said.

I gripped his wrists. “Did…was that what you wanted?”

He tucked my hair back. “It was everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then tell me.”

He leaned in, gripping my head and pulling it in. His mouth came down on mine, tearing over me like the last throes of his storm, moving down until his tongue dragged the cum from my chin and brought it to my mouth.

Pushing the taste between my lips.

“Calling you a good girl isn’t enough,” he murmured.

My chest swelled with pride. He had no words. I’d made Caden Payne, the prince of biting sarcasm, speechless. He lifted me in his arms and carried me through the bathroom door, stopping short.

“It’s very…pink in here,” he said.

“Thanks, do you like it?”

“Add some more taxidermy, and it’s perfect.”

I couldn’t help but giggle. He set me on the sink and reached for the washcloth. His cum was drying on my nipples and stinging my skin, dripping down to the slip bunched around my waist.

He was quiet as he ran the warm washcloth over my upper body—wiping, wringing it out, and wiping more until I was clean. Then, he dried me and pulled my slip up.

“Time to mess you up again, butterfly,” he said, tapping my chin.

He made good on that. Back in my bed, I peeled back the silk sheets, and he slipped beneath them with me. Our bodies were naked and wound together in seconds. I was halfway through trying to remember if I’d taken my birth control pill when his cock slipped inside me, Caden groaning as he pushed to the hilt.

“I did,” I gasped.

“What?” His abs tensed, hips thrusting.

“I took my pill.”

He kissed me and licked down my neck. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

I was about to protest, but he reached down and took his belt off the bedside table. Still inside me, he used one hand to slip the belt over my wrists and secure it to my mauve headboard covered in roses and ribbon.

His hand tightened on the pillow above my bound hands, and my heart fluttered frantically in my chest.

His hips slammed into me, and his eyes flashed.

“Gonna ruin you,” he breathed. “Just the way you like.”