Chapter 5: Echoes of Want
The cold was a lie.
It hung in the air of her chambers, crisp and pristine, but beneath her skin, Kaitlyn was furnace-hot. The silvered silk of her bed was a slick tangle around her legs, the sheets still smelling faintly of him—leather, night wind, and that musky, male scent that was pure Cassian. The phantom weight of him pinned her to the memory of the stone floor. The echoing sensation of those final, shuddering thrusts played on a loop behind her clenched eyelids.
Her hand moved between her thighs with a frantic, practiced rhythm that was its own kind of anger. This wasn’t about pleasure. It was an exorcism. A futile attempt to chase the feeling out of her system, to master it through repetition, to reduce that world-altering collision to a simple physical release.
It wasn’t working.
Every slide of her fingers, every press of her heel into the mattress, just dragged her deeper into the memory. The bite of cold stone. The searing heat of his mouth. The raw, unfiltered sound he’d made when he came. She arched off the bed, a stifled gasp tearing from her throat as she chased the crest of a wave that only seemed to build, taunting her. She was so close, teetering on that edge, her body coiled tight—
A floorboard groaned in the hallway.
She froze, her breath catching in her chest. Her senses, always sharp, stretched beyond the door. The scent of him hadn’t faded from the hall. He was still there. He hadn’t left.
Cassian stood like a statue in the dim corridor, one hand half-raised toward the splintered wood of her door. He’d meant to go to the training pits, to pummel the lingering energy from his bones. But his feet had refused to carry him past her threshold. The scent of her—winter frost and arousal—seeped through the jagged crack where the lock had been.
Then he heard it. A muffled, shuddering sigh. The soft, wet sound of her touch.
His blood, still humming from earlier, turned to lava. Every muscle in his body locked. His cock, which had only just begun to soften, hardened again in an instant, a painful, demanding pressure against the confines of his leathers. He shouldn’t listen. This was a violation. He knew it. He was Commander of the Night Court’s armies, not some Peeping Tom lingering outside a bedroom door.
But his hand, as if moving of its own volition, pressed flat against the cold wood. He leaned his forehead against it, closing his eyes. Each tiny, bitten-off sound from within was a brand on his nerves. He could picture it—the dark red fan of her hair on the pillows, the flush on her pale skin, the fierce concentration on her face as she chased a shadow of what they’d just done.
A low, possessive growl built in his chest. The rational part of his mind, the strategist, screamed that this changed everything. That it was a complication they couldn’t afford with Autumn Court knives in the shadows. The rest of him, the primal, Illyrian-bred part, didn’t give a damn. It wanted to kick the broken door in all over again, stalk across the room, and show her exactly how inadequate her own hand was.
Inside, Kaitlyn’s breath hitched, a sharp, desperate little sound. It was the sound of her breaking.
Cassian shoved himself away from the door as if burned. His knuckles were white, his breathing ragged. This was uncharted, dangerous territory. Worse than a battlefield. On a battlefield, the enemy was clear.
He took three silent, ground-eating steps down the hall before stopping again. The image of her, alone in that cold bed wrestling with the ghost of him, was untenable. It made his chest feel too tight.
He turned on his heel.
He didn’t knock. He just shouldered the already-ruined door, the wood groaning in protest, and stepped inside.
Kaitlyn jolted upright, snatching the silk sheet to her chest. Her hair was a wild tumble, her lips swollen, her eyes wide and blazing with a mixture of fury and naked shock. The scent of her own pleasure was thick in the air.
“Get out,” she spat, the command undercut by the breathless tremor in her voice.
Cassian ignored her. He closed the distance to the bed in four strides, his gaze holding hers, not dropping it to where the sheet gathered. “That didn’t sound like it was working.”
“You were listening?” The outrage was genuine, a shield. Her fingers clutched the silk tighter.
“The whole mountain probably heard you.” He braced a hand on the carved post at the foot of her bed, leaning into her space. “Sounded like you were losing an argument.”
“I don’t need your commentary, Cassian. I needed you to leave.”
“You don’t get to throw a match on a powder keg and then complain about the heat, Star.” His voice was a low rumble. “You asked me to stay gone. Your body’s telling a different story. Loudly.”
She flinched. There was no clever retort. The truth of it hung between them, humid and undeniable. The tension snapped back, thicker than before, charged with the memory of the floor and the evidence of her solitary attempts to process it.
“This changes nothing,” she said, her voice firmer now, building ice around the edges.
“Bullshit.” He laughed, a short, harsh sound. “It changes everything. You know it does. Now we have to figure out what ‘everything’ looks like.” He finally let his gaze drop, taking in the rumpled sheets, the frantic rise and fall of her chest under the fabric. His jaw tightened. “Starting with the fact that you shouldn’t be doing that alone.”
Her chin lifted. “I don’t recall requiring your assistance.”
“Yeah?” He reached out, faster than she could blink, and snagged the edge of the sheet. He didn’t yank it away. He just held it, his fingers brushing the back of her clenched hand. “Prove it. Tell me to leave again. Mean it.”
The challenge hung in the frozen air. She could feel the warmth of his fingers through the silk. She could see the pulse beating rapidly at the base of his throat. The memory of his weight, his taste, flooded her mouth anew.
Her lips parted. The words wouldn’t come.
A slow, triumphant smile touched his mouth. It wasn’t cruel. It was knowing. He released the sheet. “That’s what I thought.”
He straightened, turning slightly as if to go, the movement casual. A tactical retreat to gauge her reaction. “Get dressed. The ‘discreet, unpleasant inquiries’ start now. I need a second set of eyes in the city. Someone who can spot a lie in a heartbeat.”
The shift was so abrupt it left her dizzy. From raw intimacy to cold mission in a breath. It was a lifeline, and she grabbed it, grateful for the sudden return to purpose. “Where?”
“The belly of the beast. A pleasure barge on the Sidra, favored by merchants who trade in things that don’t appear on ledgers. The owner owes Rhys a favor that’s about to be called in.” He glanced back at her, all business, though his eyes still smoldered. “Wear something that doesn’t scream ‘ice queen of vengeance.’ Blend in.”
She was already swinging her legs out of bed, the sheet wrapped around her like armor. “I can blend.”
“You’ve never blended a day in your long life,” he said, heading for the door. “But watching you try should be entertaining. Meet me at the river docks in an hour. And Star?” He paused in the shattered frame. “Wear your hair up. Less noticeable.”
The door hung crooked behind him. Kaitlyn stood in the middle of her sanctuary, the echoes of her own moans still seeming to vibrate in the air, now mixed with the crisp authority of his commands. The unresolved, aching heat in her core was still there, but it was joined by something else—a sharp, focused anticipation.
The game was indeed theirs. And it was beginning not in the silent war rooms, but on a pleasure barge floating over dark water. She moved to her wardrobe, her fingers already unknotting the sheet. The cold of the room finally began to feel real again, a familiar cloak she could draw around herself. But beneath it, the embers he’d stirred burned steadily, waiting for the next spark.