soft gratitude before dipping a kiss onto Ella’s forehead. “Hey.”
“You all right?”
Snort. “Pretty sure that’s my line, woman.” I stroke into the dip of her waist—ordering my cock to stand down when observing the dark marks persisting on the silk of her skin. “After treating you like my caveman rag doll…”
She turns her face up, doing that delectable lip-biting thing. “In case you did not notice, the doll did not mind.”
I let her make her way up, accepting the full pressure of her lips, letting her velvet tongue have its juicy way with mine for a long, wet kiss. Fuck. At once, my blood turns up the tempo on the drum machine, and I’m ready to show the doll how I want to keep time again.
“Ahhh Christ, armeau.” With a dark moan, I brace her shoulders and set her back. “Any more of that, and you’ll have me bargaining with God for an early Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Her nose crunches. So fucking adorable. “Whatever for?”
I lift a lazy grin. “Because boys get to play all day with their toys on Christmas.”
She flashes a mock glare. “Well, not on Arcadia.”
I return a real one. “Bunch of buzz kills.”
“We call it The Holiday. There are still decorations and toys for the children, and lavish parties given at the central villa of every region, with the biggest at the Palais in Sancti—but during those celebrations, the children are expected to give back to their communities in some way. Many participate in plays or musical performances. Some paint ornaments that are displayed on the trees. Groups of the older children form teams, and go out into their towns to help clear trails, or maintain the natural forests and beaches.”
“And what did you do?” I ask it quietly while finger-combing her hair with slow strokes.
She gives her bell-like laugh before teasing, “What do you think?”
I smirk. “Why can I readily imagine you in an elf’s hat, with a hundred different organizational journals in your cute little hands?”
Her brows dance. “My Holiday journals were the rage. You should have seen them…”
“I can only imagine.” I keep the laugh from it, unwilling to mar even one nuance of her glow. My nobility earns me a tighter twist in my gut. Hell. Watching her speak about Arcadia, with pride and affection brightening her eyes more by the second, only clarifies how much she likely longs to return already. Despite her parents’ obsessive ambition, she has forged a meaningful life there. A vocation. A future.
But you can give her a future here.
Oh yeah? Doing what? Being what?
My girlfriend? My convenient little toy?
And how long will that last?
She can go to school. Get a dozen degrees in whatever subjects she wants. She’s already obscenely smarter than half the college graduates I have met in the Court Enterprises HR department. Student visas are easy enough to renew, so she can stay as long as she wants—
No.
She can stay as long as you want.
And after it was all said and done, where the fuck would it get us?
Because as full as she fills my soul, there is no room for her in my life. There’s no room for anyone, goddammit. The keel is balanced just fine without it. I’m doing just fucking fine.
“Cassian?”
“Hmmm?” I issue the answer at once. Her prompt hasn’t startled this time; every awareness in my system has kept totally attuned to her. Treasuring every fucking second with her.
“What is it?”
I don’t answer right away. I do wait for the better part of a minute, letting the beat of the rain inject some needed peace to my thoughts—and libido. “Just calming the beastie,” I finally reply.
“So now we are all right with ‘beastie?’”
“Perhaps.” I buss her nose. “The cute and castration might have its purpose…in this case.”
She retaliates by biting my nose. “Dare I ask what case might that be?”
“The case where I try to hold off from fucking you again.”
“Oh.” Biting still looks like her plan—in different ways. “But…where’s the fun in that?”
Sure enough, she starts to undulate with purpose. As her elegant curves entice me in about a hundred new ways, she starts sliding a hand down my chest. Trails the notch bisecting my abs. Slips beneath the sheet, which is already a fucking party tent with a main pole that’s all too happy about her approach…
Before she’s halted. By my resolved clamp of a grip.
Determination I almost lose, when she girl-growls with sexy-as-fuck force. Follows it with a kittenish snort. “Buzz kill.”
I work to mellow her ire by