Cassian was standing close to me now. Way too close... and his gaze didn’t leave my face.
Not for a second.
The air between us thickened—heavy, suffocating—like something invisible had just snapped into place.
He slowly reached up, his movements deliberate...
His thumb brushed my cheeks before his fingers brushed the frame of my glasses.
My breath hitched.
He slowly slid them off, and the world blurred instantly, but not enough to hide him.
Nothing could hide him.
Cassian looked down at the glasses in his hand for a brief second... then back at me. His eyes darkened further, something unreadable flickering beneath the surface.
"You shouldn’t say things like that," he murmured.
His voice was quieter now.
"Men like me don’t hear innocence in words like that."
My pulse stuttered.
He stepped even closer, our bodies pressed until my back pressed harder against the cold marble, and he was the only solid thing left in my world.
"Punishment?" he repeated softly, like he was testing the word on his tongue. "You think this is about punishment?"
His free hand came up—slow enough for me to see it coming... fast enough that I couldn’t stop it.
His fingers tilted my chin up and forced my gaze to meet his.
"No," he said, his voice dropping lower, rougher. "This is about control."
My breath came out unevenly. I couldn’t even think straight. I could feel him everywhere... the heat pooling in my belly.
"You lie to me," he continued, his thumb brushing lightly along my jaw. "You provoke me... You stand there and tell me you don’t belong to me..."
His grip tightened just slightly.
"...and then you offer yourself up like that?"
Heat rushed through me—embarrassment, anger, lust...something far more dangerous curling underneath my skin.
"I didn’t—" I started.
"You did," he cut in immediately. Like always, his voice wasn’t loud nor harsh, but it was absolute.
His thumb moved slowly, teasingly brushing over my lower lip, and my body betrayed me again.
I let out a low exhale, but his eyes caught it.
Of course they did.
"They all think you’re composed," he murmured. "Perfect. Untouchable."
His lips curved faintly.
"But I can feel it."
My heart slammed harder.
"Every time you lie..." he continued, his voice almost a whisper now, "your body tells me the truth."
I swallowed.
Big mistake.
His gaze dropped to my throat, tracking the movement, and then slowly moved to stare at my lips...
He paused.
His lips inched closer to mine, and I instinctively licked my lips, wetting them for the kiss he was about to give me.
He let out a low growl... And then his gaze moved upwards... and slowly returned to my eyes.
"So let me make this very clear, Isabelle," he said. My name sounded different in his mouth now.
He leaned in—close enough that I could feel his lips brushing against mine... but he didn’t kiss me.
He just paused at that distance, purposely torturing me.
This time, he didn’t rush it. This time... he withheld it.
"If you ever offer yourself like that again," he whispered, "you’d better be ready for me to take you seriously."
My fingers curled against the marble.
"Because the next time..." his voice dipped, turning into something dark and final, "I won’t stop."
The silence crashed between us....
It was heavy, electric, and almost terrifying. And then—
Cassian stepped back.
Just like that.
The sudden distance made my head spin more than his closeness had.
I stared at him, my breathing uneven and my thoughts in complete disarray.
What... what just happened?
Cassian looked at me for one long moment, his expression unreadable—but his eyes...
His eyes still burned with that same hunger.
"This isn’t over," he said quietly.
My heart tightened because his words didn’t feel like a threat. It didn’t feel like a promise.
It was something worse... A certainty.
Then he turned—and walked away. Leaving me there... Breathless. Shaken.
And far more entangled in him than I had ever intended to be.
I could feel the dampness between my legs.
Oh my god... I was screwed.
~~~♧♧♧~~~
Cassian’s POV
Cassian didn’t stop walking until the doors shut behind him.
Only then did he exhale.
His breathing came out slow and controlled. But it did nothing to steady the storm clawing its way through his chest.
"Take me to the mansion," he told Andrew, who was already holding the door open for him. Randy also took his seat.
Cassian got into the backseat as usual, looking composed, but he was nowhere near that.
His jaw tightened as his hand came up, dragging slowly down his face.
Control.
He had built his entire life on it.
He refined it. Perfected it. Weaponised it.
Men feared him because he never lost it.
Women... submitted to it.
Everyone he came in contact with learned quickly—where to stop, how to speak, how to exist around him without crossing lines that would get them burned.
He understood them.
Predictable... All of them.
So why—
His fingers clenched on his thigh.
...why the hell was she different?
Cassian’s eyes darkened as the image replayed in his mind with brutal clarity.
Isabelle.
Standing there...
Those damn glasses perched on her face... softening her features, making her look innocent.
He had no idea he had a fetish for women in glasses.
He had imagined it – her, beneath him... bent over, her eyes wide as she stared at him through those glasses as he fucked her – raw... primal... as he punished her.
She had no idea what kind of fire she had just stepped into.
His fingers curled even more as her voice replayed in his mind.
"If you want to vent... punish me..."
A sharp exhale left him.
That wasn’t what nearly undid him.
No.
It was the way she said it. How unaware and uncalculated she sounded.
Like she didn’t understand the weight of those words when spoken to a man like him.
He should have been angry about how she kept protecting Ryan, but he couldn’t help it... imagining how she would feel.
Cassian let out a low, humourless chuckle. She was dangerous.
That was why he had to leave her there. If he hadn’t, he would have fucked her right there.
His condition never allowed him to feel pleasure. It was a dull and hollow kind of feeling.
That was why he had to up it with something... go extra. He only felt a semblance of pleasure by imitating what he saw on the women’s faces.
So after Selena, he stopped trying...he stopped chasing something he wouldn’t feel...something he could only feel by taking higher doses of his shots.
But with her, he didn’t have to try; just her smile made his cock stir.
And now, he was as hard as a fucking metal pole, and his cock hadn’t softened even when he walked away from her.
If anything, it had gotten even harder, straining against his pants.
He could still feel her, her warmth, her scent, her body heat beneath his palm, and he could still remember the taste of her lips.
His head tilted slightly as another detail surfaced.
The hitch in her breath.
The way her body responded before her mind could catch up.
The way she looked at him—not like the others.
She didn’t look at him with fear. There were no expectations whatsoever in those brown eyes.
It was something else... Something raw... Something dark that didn’t fit the perfect, controlled image she tried so hard to maintain.
His gaze sharpened.
"You don’t belong to me..."
He repeated the words under his breath, testing them.
They should have irritated him. They should have provoked his anger. But instead...
Something darker settled in his chest. Possession.
Not the shallow kind.
Not the kind he’d seen in desperate men trying to claim what they couldn’t hold.
No.
This was quieter... and far more dangerous.
It was the kind that didn’t need permission.
The kind that waited, watched, and learned.
And that was the problem.
He was watching. He was learning. And the more he did...
The less she made sense.
The car came to a stop, and Cassian didn’t wait for Randy or Andrew to open the door for him before he stepped out on his own.
He stormed past the guards and the bowing maids and went straight into his bedroom.
He kicked off his shoes and took off his clothes with practised ease and entered the shower.
Cold water cascaded down his body, and his expression hardened.
"Isabelle..." He muttered, his hand moving slightly to that hard part of his body.
This was the first time he had done something like this... Pleasuring himself.
His cock twitched as soon as his fingers grazed it... He could feel it.
It wasn’t heightened like when he took shots, but it was there... And he could feel it building up.
"Isabelle..." he whispered, his voice like a prayer, his muscles tensing and his expression morphing into something he didn’t recognise.
And his eyes... They didn’t cool.
"Interesting..."
The word was soft. Measured. But finally.
Cassian groaned, stroking faster.
Because this wasn’t about curiosity anymore.
This wasn’t about suspicion. And it definitely wasn’t about the alliance.
His lips curved faintly.
Dangerously.
"She doesn’t belong to me..." He repeated again.
This time, slower, his tone deliberate. "Then why does she react like she does when I touch her?"
He stroked faster, and his pulse thundered loudly in his ear; he could still hear her words.
"Punish me."
"Why does she look like she’s waiting for it?"
Fuck!
He wanted her. He wanted every fucking part of her.
Whatever she was hiding...
Whatever game she thought she was playing...
He was done watching from the sidelines. His voice dropped, low and certain.
"Run all you want...Sweetheart", he muttered, followed by a faint, dangerous smile.
"I’ll enjoy catching you."
His hips jerked and his jaw clenched as hot spurts of cum hit the bathroom walls.
"Isabelle...fuck... You’re mine."
And this time—
He meant it.