Naughty Little Gift -- A Temptation Court Novella (Temptation Court, Book 1) (19 page)

When her nose crinkles, my breath returns—in time to ignite my chest’s fucking fireworks show. “Indeed I did. But I believe the proper term here is…TMI?”

“Too Much Information?” I slide a sly smirk. “Nah. Too
much
information is bragging that my arm-fart of the national anthem kicked ass all over Damon’s. Even Mom agr—”

The abort button is five seconds too late. Ella’s curiosity is already in full bloom, though it’s still the open, did-I-miss-something kind, not the what-the-hell-are-you-hiding kind.

“Damon?” Her innocence cinches the fresh twist in my gut.
Dammit
, was I really that careless? “Who is that?”

For a second—maybe more than one—I weigh the merit of a simple lie.
Simple? Really? How
?

Fine. Maybe half the truth.
He went with us to Jersey a few times. I was close to him in childhood
.

Both statements are completely true. But neither is the full truth.

“He was my brother.”

And sometimes it’s just better to lie in the fucking bed one makes.

She would’ve learned this part sooner or later. Something would’ve given her more than a passing clue, then she’d mention it to her ‘net-savvy little friend over in Arcadia, who’d hunt deeper than the basic wiki and biography websites from which Legal has managed to suppress the information so far. This way, I’m controlling the feed—and exactly how much of my soul is lobbed off in the doing. The wound will be repairable. A more invisible scar after she’s gone.

“Your…brother.” Her murmur is dotted with bewilderment. “Oh. I—I did not know—”

“Few do.” My stomach clenches by another notch. I cloak the discomfort in a haven cold but familiar: the corporate photo pose. Powerful lean against the desk. One hand braced against the top, knuckles down. It says impenetrability. It says
back the hell down.

But to someone like Mishella Santelle, it only says
here’s your pause for more questions.

“Well, does he live in Connecticut now too? Is he older or younger than you?”

And fuck it, all my heart wants to do is answer—as my soul screams from the incision.

“Older,” I finally grit. “By two years.” My fist grinds so hard against the desk, I expect cracks to fissure the glass plane. “At least…he was.”

Her breath clutches—the sound I’ve been dreading. And now hate.

“W-was?”

I twist my lips. Focus my stare out the window, onto something as innocuous as possible. A crow sits atop a chimney half a block away, a black sentinel against the late afternoon sky. Why is that bird so still? And aren’t crows supposed to be magical symbols of something?

“Cassian?”

I swivel toward her. It’s torture but I’m unable to fight it.
Magic
. It’s not in the crow; it’s right here in her searching gaze, her quiet concern, her soft sorrow…

No. Not sorrow.

Pity.

Fuck.

I am the subject of nobody’s pity
.

“This isn’t something I want to talk about anymore, Mishella.”

Her throat vibrates on a heavy swallow. Still, her chin jolts up before she replies, “Is that why the only sound louder than your fist against that desk is the grind of your teeth? Why you look as if you yearn to collapse where you stand, but run as fast as you can at the same time?”

I jerk upright. Shove to my full stance. Pivot away. “This conversation isn’t going to happen. Period.”

I had to go and nickname her after the princess who walked home from the ball carrying a pumpkin and a bunch of mice. Her hand, persistent and elegant, wraps around my forearm from behind. “I think this conversation is long overdue.”

“Then you think really wrong.”

“I do not want to hurt you.”

A laugh twists out of my constricting throat. “Christ, Mishella.” All too fast, the laugh becomes a moan. “Don’t you see?” I focus outside again—seeking the crow. Needing it to get out in a snarl, “You. Will. Incinerate. Me.”

Pumpkin. Mice. This damn, tenacious woman flattens herself against my back, her cheek like a flare to my whole spine…my whole being. “Maybe it is simply time to live in the light again.”

Her arms circle my waist. She feels so fucking good…

I clutch her wrists. Bring her in closer. “But you like the dark better.”

“Maybe the world needs both.”

The husk in her voice follows the fiery path she has already ignited…up my spine then back down. Spreading lower. Lower…

I shudder. She presses tighter.

“Cassian, please. I just want to help.”

Her presence penetrates deeper. Makes me consider, if only for a moment…

What would it be like…to surrender? To really talk about it all? To let someone into the darkness again?

Like you let Lily in?

My breath rushes out, full of relief, as the thought slams in. It’s the steel door I need. The clarity I crave. The passage back to the space I can best keep Ella too. Indeed, like a beacon, it guides my hands atop both of hers. Shoves them down until she’s cupping me. The inferno of my thoughts turns into the perfect fire between my thighs.

“Then help me,” I grate…pushing harder into her grip. Filling her fingers, which now follow my lead. She grips and sprawls and stretches, taking in the width of my bulge…

Her breath quickens against my back. “Oh. By the powers.
Oh.
”

“Yes.
Fuck,
yes…”

“No!”

It’s just a gasp but breaks us apart like a scream. I wheel around but already know I shouldn’t be—that my glare, spawned by disgust for myself, is going to look more like impatient fury. Like the expression of a man who expects to get his forty million dollars’ worth out of the woman in front of him. The woman at whose feet he should be falling instead.

The woman who stumbles away, lips trembling, eyes entirely too bright.

“Well.” Her chin jerks high again—while her hands wrestle in front of her stomach. “I suppose apologies are in order. I am…sorry, Cassian. Truly.”

My throat squeezes. “What the hell?
You’re
sorry?”

“You were right. This conversation really is not happening.” Her eyes drop like a subject being judged by her king. “And now that I am enlightened about everything, it will not again. I give you my promise about that.”

A strange weight slams my chest. “Promise?” I repeat. “Enlightened? I don’t…understand.”

“It is all right.
I
do.” And why the hell is she
smiling
now—with such open serenity? “What you really wish for in all this is a bedmate.”

“A bed
what
?”

“A fuck friend?” She cocks her head. “Is that more comfortable for you? Or do you prefer a calling booty?”

I unlock my teeth long enough to snap, “You are
not
my goddamn booty call.”

“Hm.” The sound is clipped as her smile taps out. She drops her head again—though not quickly enough. The shiny tracks on her cheeks are unmissable. “That is…an interesting point of view.”

Another sensation invades my chest. It’s not like the normal ache when I’m with her. It’s worse—like my lungs are wrapped in rope and a dull knife is relentlessly sawing to get through.
Or to get out
?

“Mishella.” The dagger’s in my voice now, an entreaty for understanding. But will that matter? She wants things I can’t give. She wants the past. She wants the truth.

She wants too much.

She lets my plea fall into silence, as she turns and leaves on slow steps.

I watch until she disappears—

and then I can watch no more.

I spin back toward the desk, toward the window through which I crave to drive my fist—especially now with the crow on its sill, smugly eyeing me as darkness takes over the city behind him.

*

Mishella

“B
lack.”

“Blue.”

“And red all over?”

I watch, a little stunned, as my quip elicits the same wide eyes and dropped jaws from my two best friends. Their matched reactions are not strange because they have dialed into the video call from different locales in Arcadia, but because they agree on something for the first time in thirty minutes. Granted, half that time has been spent studying the fifty evening gowns I have strewn across the largest of Temptation’s guest rooms, and I am in the worst mood of my life
not
brought on by my parents, but the tension flowing from the two has been palpable—until now.

“Did she just…make a joke?” Brooke ventures.

Vylet cocks her head. “I think so.”

“Everyone hold the line. I need to circle this day in red—somewhere.”

“Hmmm. Maybe America
is
a good influence on you, missie thang.”

I groan my way into a face palm. “Two weeks, Vy. I have been away for
two weeks
, and ‘missie thang’ is already out for some vernacular exercise?”

“Two weeks and three days,” Vy asserts. “Almost four. And I’ll give up ‘missie thang’ when you get rid of ‘vernacular exercise’.”

Brooke, who has given us a backup soundtrack of soft giggles, suddenly sobers. “Sorry, M. I’ve let her slide a little. Things have been a little…strange around here lately.”

“Strange?” I push aside a few of the dresses, needing to sit down. “That does not sound…good.”

Understatement. All the strain I have sensed from them is not my imagination—and I shiver just from wondering why.

“Oh,
now
you have her going, Brooke.”

“Have me going where?” I demand. “And why?”

“It’s nothing.” Brooke waves a hand in front of her awkward frown. “It’s probably nothing.”

“
Probably
?” My chest feels rubber-banded. “What does that—” I cannot finish. Coming from Brooke, who is married to the head of all Arcadian security forces, it could mean anything—but I force my mind away from the direst scenarios. The ones left behind are not the most comforting either. “Should Cassian be ordering the plane to take me home instead of sending me more dresses?” Because there
will
be more—of that, I have no doubt.

“All right. Hold on and chug a chill.” Vy throws up a speak-to-the-hand too, with much more purpose than Brooke’s fly swat. “The heightened security watches could just as well be practice drills, and—”

“Heightened security watches?” My optimistic resolve crumbles. My thoughts race, bringing up the period that changed so much for Arcadia three and a half months ago—thanks to the vigilante group who forced King Evrest to fake his own death, thrusting Samsyn onto the Arcadian throne. Thank the Creator, the movement was swiftly put down—though not the outside forces suspected of inspiring and funding it. “Are the…Pura…back?” I grimace, loathing even having to utter their name.

“No,” Vy protests.

“We don’t know,” Brooke says at the same time.

“Saynt.” His name shoots off my lips, an arrow off the bow of my fear. He is technically not a soldier yet, but desperate times beget desperate measures. Where is he, even now? It is a new day on the island. Is he getting ready for one of those watches? Surely he is not getting done with one. They would not place him on a dangerous night watch so soon. In so many ways, he is still just a boy…

“He’s
fine
, girlfriend.” Brooke’s words are jabbed with conviction, confirming she has checked that veracity herself. “If anything, he’s jonesing for action a little too hard for Samsyn’s liking.” She inhales with meaning. “But I know how the kid feels.”

Slowly, a smile returns to my lips. I hope she can see the gratitude behind it. I miss my feisty former boss—even her daily grumblings about the grind of being a princess instead of a warrior.

“Well…keep him in line,” I reply good-naturedly.

“We
both
are,” Vy assures. “Just like his big sistah would.”

“Speaking of keeping males in line…” Brooke exaggerates a brow waggle. “Can we get back to the subject—or should I say the confusing jerk—at hand?”

“And the fact that the blue gown will drive him more insane than the black?”

The dress Vy refers to, a sparkly pale blue sheath, is nearly the color of my eyes—not that Cassian will notice my eyes with its plunging neckline. Brooke’s top choice is a flowing black creation with an equally dramatic bodice: newly arrived from Milan, according to the curious little woman who has come every morning with fresh batches of gowns, per Cassian’s directive—or so she tells me. The man himself has not given me more than twenty words since our “discussion” in the study last week, choosing to work late and eat elsewhere—sometimes even just spending the night at the office. I have little hope that this Literacy Ball is going to change anything, but vow to give it a go.

And yes…perhaps there is a small part of me who wants to really be a princess for a night. Just this once…

“Show us both the dresses again.” Brooke’s request tugs my mind back to the present—away from its empathy with the sobbing sky outside. Like my spirit, the New York weather has been nonstop on the soggy for days. I welcome the chance to flip the smart pad screen, panning it across the bed. As I do, she emits a low whistle. “Daaammmn, girl. You know I’m not into apology by foof, but that man
is
trying to tell you something.”