No matter how intimate and seductive a setting this was.
I had to keep some part of me above water until I was sure it was safe to swim with this shark.
“This is about you and me,” he said.
I snorted. A start. But a vague enough statement that it could have gone in a thousand different directions.
“How so?”
“How so?” Cassius repeated. “Care to be more specific?”
“Did you bring me here to embarrass me? To break me before everyone?”
The words slipped out before I could censor them, or at least frame them in a proper light. Cassius snorted, a sly grin forming on his face, but nothing that told me of a definitive direction his demeanor might go in or what he intended. It could have been confirmation of my suspicion, or amusement that I had ever suspected this in the first place.
“Let’s just say the fact that we are here now, like so,” Cassius said, “shows that I had a change of plans.”
It was easy to read into that as a “yes” to my question. But maybe Cassius’ change of plans was to delay my breaking longer. Maybe he enjoyed toying with his food.
I had to get past the toying. I had to get to the heart of the matter.
“You would have every reason to after… well, what happened.”
“With Virgil?”
Pause.
“Or did you forget his name already?”
I could hear my heart thudding in my chest. So much for Cassius being coy and elusive.
The tension became too much. It wasn’t just tension in the chest; it was in the whole body. I felt like Cassius had put me in a vice grip, leaving me at his mercy. He was not a cruel man, but he was not exactly a merciful one, either. I reached for the glass of wine.
And then, before I could pull it back, Cassius had placed his hand over mine.
The electricity!
The… shock.
The tension.
I had to remind myself to breathe, I’d gotten so enraptured in the moment. My eyes stared at his hand; his fingers were firmly yet gently pressed upon mine. I didn’t dare glance up into his eyes, knowing full well that there was a fine line between submission and surrender.
I let myself glance at his face in my peripheral vision; he had affixed his stony gaze upon me, daring me to look at him. I could not. Would not. Not if I wanted any semblance of control tonight. Not if I didn’t want to end up in his bed tonight.
Which…
Intoxicating.
Arousing.
But just not the time, not yet at least.
Finally, forcefully, I pulled my hand back with the glass in hand. Cassius leaned back, letting out the quietest of exhales. I put the glass to my mouth. Before the wine hit my lips, he spoke.
“My original change of plans was to act as if you were never coming back,” he said. “And I frankly had no reason to think that you ever were. But now that you are here…”
He stood up, glass in hand, and walked over to me. Why did being over six feet tall seem so much bigger when it was standing over you, not just by you?
