The Devil's Favourite Obsession

”What?” Cixi questioned bewilderedly.

She tried to free herself, twisting, but his grip on her wrists did not give a way. ”You are a pervert!”

”Did I make too blunt a statement?” Cassian mused, entirely unbothered. ”Probably should have gone for the gentleman’s approach. Let me rephrase.” He lowered his voice to something velvety. ”Your delectable curves were practically designed for discipline, Lousy Kisser. That exquisite backside is begging for my attention. You again trying to slap me felt like a provocation. A provocation I simply cannot ignore anymore. You want this, or how else will you explain why you would dare to try to slap me once more?” His fingers traced the dip of her waist, lingering just above the swell of her hips. ”Shall we discuss how perfectly my hand would fit against those rounds, tempting flesh? Or would you prefer I demonstrate instead?”

A treacherous warmth bloomed low in her belly at his words. She crushed it immediately.

”How are you even here?” Cixi wriggled beneath him, trying to pry his hands off hers. ”Weren’t you supposed to be in your safe place? Did you decide to come out of hiding and bless the world with your devilish handsome face?”

Cassian exhaled through his nose, the particular exhale of a man whose seduction was being actively derailed. ”Here I am, trying to arouse you, and you are thinking about other matters.”

It was not that Cixi was unaffected by his words or his hand movements which was causing her to feel so much she wasn ready to feel to yet. She was desperately trying to change the subject before her body betrayed her any further. ”I didn’t hear anything.”

”You called me a pervert.”

”Yes, I did. Why? Did you say something else after that? Because all I caught was a buzzing mosquito.” She made every effort to keep her voice steady.

”Mosquito,” Cassian repeated softly after Cixi. And the word left his mouth flat and dangerous, the way a man repeats an insult he fully intends to answer with action rather than words.

His hand, which had stilled during their exchange, began to move again with only one intention.

His palm settled on the curve of her backside and pausing there just to prepare Cixi for what was coming. Then, with an intentional slowness, his large hand began to trace a long circle along the full swell of one side, his thumb pressing gently into her flesh as if measuring the shape and memorising the geometry of her buttchick.

Heat rose through her lower pelvis like a tide, feeling impossible to ignore. Meanhile, a current ran the length of her spine and pooled at the base of it, warm and liquid and deeply inconvenient.

Cixi bit her lip, harder. She would not make a sound. She would not give him any reaction.

And Cassian watched her. The way her shoulders tensed. The way her breath shortened. The way goosebumps rose across the exposed skin of her arms and the back of her neck like a confession written in braille.

He said nothing. He simply enjoyed watching her body react.

His hand lifted, and she hated the half-second of absence, hated the way her body registered the loss before her mind could override it, and then it returned, settling on the other side. The with the same slowness he made the circle. His fingers splayed, tracing the full, rounded curve with patience. He was not rushing anything. Each pass of his hand was a little firmer, a little slower, working like fire into her skin through the fabric until it felt as though his touch were branding her from the outside in.

Cixi brought her legs together, squeezing her thighs tight as though she could contain the sensation building between her legs by sheer force of will. It did not work. If anything, the pressure made it worse, turning the low, simmering ache into something more insistent, pulsing with each beat of her heart.

”What are you doing?” She meant it to sound angry. Indignant. Like a woman in full command of herself. However, it came out breathlessly.

Cassian’s thumb traced the crease where the curve of her backside met the top of her thigh, that impossible, sensitive seam of skin that had no business being so responsive, and dragged upward with agonising slowness. Cixi’s fingers curled into fist. A small, involuntary sound caught in her throat, trapped behind her clenched teeth.

”Why are you doing this?” Her voice was barely a whisper now. She had stopped struggling. Her body had gone still under his hands, not in surrender, but in the state between resistance and permission where the body has already decided and the mind was still catching up.

Cassian leaned down. She felt the heat of his chest against her back, and then his lips were at her ear.

”Because you haven’t told me to stop.”

The truth of it landed like a stone in still water. It was true, she had not stopped him. She had called him a pervert and asked how he got there and compared his voice to a mosquito, but she had not once, not a single time, said the word ’Stop’.

His hand resumed its slow orbit. This time his touch was lighter, fingertips only, barely grazing the fabric. Her hips shifted with a fraction of a movement toward him. Into his hand.

And one corner of his lips moved upward. ”There she is,” he murmured against the curve of her neck, pressing his lips to the place where her pulse hammered visibly beneath the skin. ”Enjoying my company, baby.”

Cixi closed her eyes, feeling his warm hand moving and gently massaging her curves. Another involuntary moan escaped her lips, and a shudder of breath left her that she couldn’t disguise as anything other than what it was.

”How can I stop you when I love you,” she whispered, unsure if she likes it how he was making her feel or she was playing a woman’s role who was in her role.

Cassian always had a way of testing Cixi whenever they met. It was like a playful game he couldn’t resist. If she casually suggested they hold hands, he would spin it into something outrageous, suggesting she might as well sit on his lap instead.

That is just how he is. Cixi thought, shaking her head mentally in amusement.

”Why do you always have to up the ante, Cassian?” she asked in mock annoyance.

He flashed her a cheeky grin. ”Because it’s fun to make you feel good!” Cassian’s lips curved against her skin. His hand slid lower, fingertips dancing along the hem of her dress. ”Tell me again in five minutes how much you love me or how much you love it. You can let me through your moans and cry...”

Cassian shifted his weight.

It was a small movement, barely perceptible, but Cixi felt every inch of it. The press of his chest against her back eased for a moment, and then his body resettled along the length of hers, closer now, his hips aligned with hers, his breath falling warm and steady against the curve of her shoulder.

He tightened both her wrists into one hand. His grip was firm but not painful, his fingers long enough to circle both her wrists with room to spare, holding them pinned above her head against the silk sheets. She tested the hold once, a small, instinctive pull, and found it immovable.

Cixi tested the hold. Once. His grip did not move. It did not tighten either. It simply existed, like an absolute.