It was an insane risk. But for a fleeting second, his mind left him—and he really did shove her leggings down. He got them halfway down before having to stop, processing the reality of the sight before him.
Shit. This was really happening. She was really here again. Beneath him. Exposed to him. Offering herself to him. God, yesss.
He wasn’t taking any of it for granted.
At once, he used a hand to pull back one of her damp ass cheeks. The other, he scooped toward the core of her sex…
The tightness of her pussy…
The perfect river of her lust…
“Damn,” he groaned. “Pixie…”
Her head fell forward again. He grunted hard, savoring her blatantly submissive position. Pretending he was inside her with his cock. Celebrating how her sweet cunt squeezed his body as tightly as her fiery spirit surrounded his soul. Basking in every perfect piece of this moment. Swearing to himself that he’d remember it all. That he’d likely pump himself to a million orgasms because of it.
“I still…hate you.”
“I know,” he growled.
“And I am still…going to…”
“Oh, I know that too.”
He was so close, his dick rested against her lax ass cheek. It wept with pre-come, and he pumped his length to gather up the milky drops. He used them as extra lubricant to get a second finger inside her, joining his desperate moan to the primal sound that tangled the length of her throat.
At once, her body gave in to him. Her walls eagerly sucked on his digits, vibrating in time to his steady, solid rhythm.
He leaned over to gain some leverage, pumping even deeper. The position also allowed him to scrape along her clit before re-entrance, while using the same friction to work his cockhead between their bodies. That part was hardly necessary. He was certain if the wind merely changed direction in here, he was going to blow his load across her beautiful ass cheeks.
But not before her. Damn it, not…before…
She began rocking herself on his fingers. Brick moaned in approval, determined this would be the best finger-fuck of his existence.
But suddenly, he was thrusting into nothing but air.
And was too stunned to issue anything but a harsh rasp—as he watched Jayd scramble away.
He was still speechless as she regained her feet and awkwardly hauled her leggings up. Though her knees were still shaky, she took a couple of plodding steps. Her shoulders slouched back in as she hugged herself with hands that had gone painfully pale.
Fuck. Fuck. I’m sorry, Pixie.
This wasn’t what it seemed. None of it.
But how to blurt that and convey what it really meant? All the things beyond it. All the things he could never just open up and confess.
Wasn’t what it seemed…
Because you were beyond what I ever dreamed.
Because you still are.
“Jayd—”
“No.” Her posture stiffened. At once, he yearned to be her obstinate underling, rushing to do whatever it took for her understanding, but he was undone when she sagged again. Her sorrow impacted him worse than before. The full weight of what her heartache was almost unbearable. “Please, Brickham…no more. Just…”
No more.
Exactly what she became then.
As soon as she jolted away as if her exit tunnel contained a monster that decided to snatch her up as a midnight snack.
But that had to be his most epic delusion of the day.
She hadn’t been torn away from him. Not compelled or forced or pulled either.
She’d run because she wanted to. Because it was what he kept telling her she wanted. Because at last, she believed him. About everything.
So…all a good thing, right?
“Sure,” he snarled beneath his breath. “Right.”
No. Nothing would be right, ever again—starting with the lowlife reflected at him from the lagoon’s wind-whipped waters. The medal-wearing champion for elite-level assholery. The jerk who’d told his submissive it had to be over but then nearly rutted on her like a sea lion cornering his cow on a rock.
And now, the tool who sat here on his ass instead of going after her. Not to push at her anymore. Just to ensure she got back safely to the civilized part of this joint. But he was too pathetic for that. Too mired in the anxiety he battled to quell. The nerves he fought with painful lungfuls of breath. Without all that, he likely would’ve been rocking his head back to laugh. As she’d already said with such vivid glory, she lived here. Once upon a time, as in a few hours ago, she’d even offered to take him on a tour of the castle tunnels.
It’d be a miracle if he found his own way out now, much less to a place where borrowable clothes could be found. Might serve him right if that wasn’t the case. Begging a flight out of here with his johnson in hand was starting to sound like poetic justice.
In the end—or what felt like the agonizing equivalent—fate was merciful. After following the tunnel on the other side of the lagoon, he quickly found his way back to ground level and then onto a circular panel that rotated into a women’s bathroom. By that point, he was practically past the concern about his nudity.
Fortunately, there was only one person using the place, and she giggled when he appeared. The woman pointed at his package with slurred commentary, making him vow to never again complain about drunk co-eds celebrating summer break by hunting down Bastille’s address. Not even after their thirtieth plea for a hot Seattle billionaire to put them in his red “bad girl” cuffs.
Luckily, the bathroom’s cleaning closet was unlocked. A pair of janitor’s coveralls fit everywhere but his shoulders and crotch, but beggars sure as hell couldn’t be choosers.
He hoped Evrest and Samsyn’s celebratory moods matched that of his friend from the bathroom. As soon as they approved his request to catch the next available air transport, he’d be off this island for good. He didn’t care where the damn thing was bound for. He was after mercy right now, for both Jayd and him.
The woman—and her pleas and her tears—were right. They couldn’t keep doing this to each other. Sealing the bond tighter was only making it shittier to break.
As in next to impossible.
Funny, how every step he took back to the commissary felt the same way.
But every wince was his own damn fault. From abandoning his cane on the beach with his clothes, to toughing out the hike from the lagoon, to ensuring that every physical pain corresponded to the stabs from his spirit, he was a corporeal and cerebral mess before clearing even half of the palais’s massive main foyer.
Seemed coincidence wasn’t ready to let him finish the trip either.
He stopped without grace, nearly slamming to his ass when realizing he wasn’t alone in this part of the building. But that alone wasn’t what lit up every hair on the back of his neck.
This was a public section of the palais. Though the hour was late, there should’ve been some more stragglers from the celebration he’d escaped nearly an hour ago. But the footsteps, which echoed everywhere and nowhere at once, were too certain and determined for drunk Arcadian revelers.
Brick tucked behind a corner pillar, already calling himself twenty kinds of a paranoid idiot. Still, he kept the effort swift but silent—not a simple feat when one was hustling a hundred and fifteen kilos on bare feet. Still, unable to shake his strange instinct, he stayed frosty for anything to repurpose into a weapon.