The Party

JaneVera’s POV

My breath fractured, a sharp, involuntary gasp that betrayed every vicious thing clawing inside me, shame, hunger, and fury twisted so tight I could taste copper. I wouldn’t fall for his words. I yanked the towel higher over my breasts, fingers trembling against the soft terry, and glared way up into his eyes that always made me feel small enough to drown in.

“So who is she?” I hissed, voice shaking with barely leashed rage. “Tonight’s replacement?”

Caesar’s eyes narrowed. The lazy satisfaction on his face vanished. Something colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous flared in its place. In one fluid, predatory surge he closed the distance, hand sliding from my throat to the nape of my neck, steering me backward until my spine met the wall with a soft, decisive thud. One thick forearm slammed into the plaster beside my head while the other kept its grip on my nape, forcing my face higher just to meet his stare. He loomed over me, the angles forcing me to feel every inch of how much bigger he was, how effortlessly he could break me if he wanted.

Xandra kept humming softly at the vanity, oblivious as she was arranging her brushes at the vanity table behind us, brushes clinking like wind chimes in another life.

Heat rolled off his bare skin in waves. My nipples peaked instantly against the towel. Traitors, they stiffened into hard, aching points that scraped the towel with every frantic breath, sending sparks straight to my clit.

“Replacement?” Ceasar repeated, the word low and lethal, dripping dark amusement. He bent until his mouth hovered at my ear, stubble rasping the sensitive shell. “She’s here for you, Jane.”

His hand left my nape and drifted down, knuckles dragging over my collarbones, thumb circling the faint violet bruises he’d sucked there earlier, his fingerprints, his claim. He traced them like a man rereading a favorite line of filthy poetry.

“She’s your stylist, Jane. Hair, makeup, dress, the whole fucking package for the engagement party. So you walk into Neven’s pathetic little engagement party looking like the queen he was too weak to keep, and Neven, he would spend the rest of his life regretting he ever let go of what was mine to begin with.” His mouth brushed my ear, breath scalded, voice a rough whisper that sank straight between my thighs. My brain caught a breath too late. Stylist. Not a lover. Not a rival. Just the woman who’d cock-blocked the single most devastating orgasm I’d ever had.

Heat exploded across my cheeks. “Oh,” I whispered, mortified. “The party… I forgot.”

A low, filthy laugh rumbled against my ear. “Forgot already,” he murmured, breath scalding. “That’s how thoroughly I fucked you empty.”

Before I could snarl back, his free hand dropped between us. No warning, no hesitation.

He shoved the towel up to my hips in one rough motion, baring me completely. His big palm cupped my pussy, possessive and shameless, fingers splaying wide over slick, swollen flesh that had no right to be this drenched again after the shower. My clit throbbed hard against the heel of his hand as he parted my folds with pressure, two thick fingers sliding through the fresh flood of arousal that had gushed out of me the instant he pinned me.

A broken moan tore from my throat. My knees buckled. I grabbed his forearm to stay upright, nails digging into muscle.

He dragged those fingers free, glistening with me, and painted a slow, obscene stripe across my bottom lip. I tasted myself instantly, sharp, musky, filthy, the flavor exploding on my tongue as my hips jerked forward on instinct, chasing his touch.

He watched my mouth, eyes dark with hunger, then slid those same fingers back between my thighs, pressing them deep inside me without mercy. My walls fluttered around the intrusion, clenching greedily, still sensitive, still ruined from earlier.

I whimpered, head falling back against the wall, towel slipping lower as my body betrayed every ounce of rage with pure, desperate want.

He leaned in, lips brushing my ear again, voice a dark, velvet growl.

“Still think I need a replacement when this cunt gets this wet just from me looking at you?”

His fingers curled inside me, stroking that spot that made my vision spark.

“Feel how easily you take me, little firecracker? This pussy knows exactly who it belongs to. And tonight, when you’re dressed like every man’s fantasy and still dripping me under that dress, you’ll remember it too.”

I couldn’t speak. Could only moan, hips rocking into his hand, rage melting into something hotter, darker, completely his.

His eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide until only a thin ring of blue remained, like the last edge of a storm about to swallow everything.

“So believe me when I say this,” he rasped, voice raw with ownership, each word scraping over my skin like a touch. “There is no replacement. There’s only you, dripping down your own thighs because I looked at you, jealous and shaking and so fucking soaked for me again. The second she’s done making you look like a goddamn queen, I’m dragging you into the nearest dark corner, shoving whatever silk you’re wearing to your waist, and fucking this greedy little cunt until you’re sobbing my name into my hand. Until every bastard in that room smells sex on you and knows exactly who you belong to.”

I blushed so hard my cheeks and ears burned crimson. My clit pulsed so violently I had to clench my thighs around his hand, trapping his fingers there, trying to keep myself from grinding against him like an animal in heat. The towel was the only thing preserving my modesty, and it felt like tissue paper against the storm he’d unleashed inside me.

I bit down on my glossed lip, tasting my own slick, tasting him, and gave him the only answer I had left. One trembling, desperate nod. It was surrender and it was everything he’d been waiting for.

“All right, let’s get started,” Xandra chirped, already spinning the chair toward the mirror.

Caesar’s hand slid from between my thighs with one final stroke that made my clit throb so hard I nearly whimpered. He let the towel fall back into place, but the damage was done, I was soaked again, thighs slick, pulse hammering low in my belly. I walked to the vanity on legs that felt made of glass, every step reminding me how swollen and empty I still was. His stare burned into my spine hot, patient, predatory, counting down the seconds until he could wreck me all over again.

Fuck the engagement party.

I wanted to shove that silver case off the table and ride him until we both forgot our own names.